Meet an anti-gun safety Senate candidate: Ted Budd

Wants to overturn state safety requirements for concealed carrying

About half of the states require individuals to obtain a permit to carry concealed firearms in public. Budd has pushed a federal bill to force all states to allow out-of-state gun owners to carry concealed weapons as long as they can in their home states.

Budd’s Senate campaign site notes that he believes “Law-abiding citizens’ [sic] have a constitutional right to carry across state lines, and is an original cosponsor of the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.”

In a December 2017 press release, Budd called the bill “a simple proposal, but a necessary one, and if enacted it will allow lawful owners to carry their firearm into other states that allow concealed carry. This interstate recognition of concealed carry would be similar to a driver’s license.”

Defending assault weapons

Budd is a vocal defender of the right to possess semi-automatic assault rifles and says they should not be prohibited because, he insists, gun violence is the fault of a person, not of a “device.”

In February 2018, according to the Greensboro News and Record, he told constituents that an assault weapons ban would “just make us feel better in the short term” but not “actually make a difference.”

“There are two sources of these mass shootings: One is mental illness – that’s probably the biggest – and the other is radical Islamic terrorism. … So we don’t have a device problem; it’s easy to blame the device. What we have is a violence issue. What are we going to do with the pressure cooker at the Boston Marathon and its shrapnel? What are we going to do with the vans that are rented and get driven down the crowded streets of Paris and kill 80 people?”

Two years later, Fox News published an opinion column Budd wrote that began:

Over the past few months, I’ve watched Virginia, a state that has historically respected and understood the importance of the Second Amendment, move toward a dangerous new approach that would overturn this crucial constitutional safeguard.

 

Red flag laws with no due process, redundant background checks, so-called “assault weapons” bans, and many other anti-gun policies have been proposed or discussed. But these policies will do little to address the mass violence problem in our society.

 

What’s happening here is quite simple: liberal politicians in Virginia – from Gov. Ralph Northam on down – are trying to punish responsible, law-abiding gun owners with additional regulatory restrictions instead of focusing their attention on those who commit heinous acts of violence.

We don’t talk about guns after mass shootings

After the mass shootings that happen more and more frequently in the United States, Budd has repeatedly scolded survivors and others for demanding policy changes to prevent future attacks.

After the 2016 massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Budd told the Charlotte Observer that people, rather than the devices they use, are the problem: “It’s intellectually lazy to continue to talk about a device problem when the real problem is evil, the darkest parts of human nature that can often go unchecked at times.”

In 2017, following more than 50 deaths in a mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music concert, Budd said that it was inappropriate to bring up gun laws in the aftermath. “Too often, the conversation around these attacks shifts away from the hurting families and the fallen victims and towards scoring political points,” he told the Salisbury Post.

After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 left 17 dead, surviving students organized a March for Our Lives to call for action. Budd baselessly attacked the survivors as being part of the “Antifa” movement and told the Dispatch in Lexington, North Carolina that they had been “co-opted.”

“There’s a rage,” he said, “but it’s pointed in the wrong direction.”

A lifetime member of the NRA — and a recipient of its money

The website of Budd’s gun range includes an advertisement encouraging visitors to join the National Rifle Association.

On his campaign site, he boasts of being “a trained NRA Range Safety Officer and lifetime NRA and Grassroots NC member.” Grass Roots North Carolina calls itself the state’s “only ‘no-compromise’ gun rights organization.”

The NRA has returned the love, sending him at least $8,500 in political action committee contributions over his political career and spending more than $200,000 on “independent expenditures” in support of his campaigns.

Budd also touts an endorsement from the far-right Gun Owners of America, a gun group that has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “a more radical alternative to the National Rifle Association.” According to Budd’s website, GOA said, “Gun owners in the Tar Heel State deserve a Second Amendment Champion in the US Senate. Congressman Ted Budd has proven himself to be that champion.”

Budd responded that he and his wife were “are both big supporters of the 2nd Amendment and we are honored that the Gun Owners of America has endorsed our campaign for US Senate. Safe and responsible gun ownership is our sacred right and I greatly appreciate that my fellow gun owners believe I’m the candidate who will best protect our constitutional rights.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.